


Sometimes Sunshine

by lori (zakhad)



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 04:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4421336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zakhad/pseuds/lori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was originally posted on alt.startrek.creative (a usenet group) a very long time ago. It won a number of ASC awards and probably got more attention than anything else I'd written to that point.</p><p>Not pleasant reading, by the way. People die, but most of them prior to the start of the story. </p><p>Pairing is deliberately not specified.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sometimes Sunshine

He made the rounds once a week. Whether he felt like it or not, just to remind him of what was, and what would never be again, he left the shelter and trod the footpath he'd worn in the grey-green grass, worn it down to the pale ochre dirt of this unnamed world upon which he'd spent the last three months.

He marked the weeks on the trunk of one of the thin trees surrounding his shelter, otherwise he'd probably forget the time as it went by. Not that it mattered. The only reason he bothered was the routine of it, the last remaining shred of duty, assumed but welcome.

This time he reached the grave site at mid-morning, and found her there. She didn't look up. Kneeling over the fourth mound, she planted a bouquet of what passed for flowers on this dirtball that was their home.

"I'm sure he'd appreciate those."

She looked up at him, and today there was something different. Had she stopped blaming him? They stared at each other for a bit, and she rose, brushing her hands on her pants. Both of them looked ragged, in clothes and in general physical appearance. The uniforms were like second skins, the only clothing they had. His had holes in the elbows and knees. Hers showed similar wear, but less of it.

"I'm sorry," she said, raspy-voiced. "I think it dishonors them, to be this way. Can we end the standoff?"

Just like that. He wanted to say no, she'd been completely unreasonable and vindictive and it couldn't end this easy, but -- it could. He'd been ready to do it for a week now. "I'd like that. My lean-to is leaning a little far to."

A smile at that. "Let's do lunch and talk about it?"

"Lunch." He turned and followed her along the path.

"I planted a garden."

They hiked along in silence for a while under a white-green sky, the sun beating down on them. The line of trees was a welcome sight; they topped the last hill and descended to the river, crossing on the boulders around which it rushed, then scrambled up the shaded hillside to the clearing that was swiftly growing over again. The shuttle still lay on its side, still had the burn marks on the side from explosion. She'd managed to take most of it apart and convert it to a shelter, the back hatch propped open just enough to be a door but closed just enough to keep out most of the weather.

She served him vegetables, raw. That was fine. Better than the things he scrounged out of the woods near his lean-to. While she cut them apart deftly, he munched slices of red squash and pink carrot, thinking of them with labels he knew rather than making up new terms.

When they finished, they sat on the rocks she'd obviously moved in for stools near her camp fire, looking at each other.

"How have you been?"

He snorted. "Coping. Same as you, only not as well."

"Your beard looks rough-edged. Want me to play barber?"

"Why not? It'll pass the time."

He didn't care if she trimmed his hair into geometric patterns, it felt good to be touched. The slight nudges along his jaw, under his chin, felt damn good. She used the knife she'd cut vegetables with, against a rock. Those Starfleet survival knives didn't lose an edge; it clipped handily enough, though she'd probably used it incessantly since the crash. She finished the beard and started on his hair, taking off the length first, then tidying it. It didn't take long and pulled occasionally, even hurt once. She set aside her implements and brushed off his shoulders, then ran her fingers through his hair, shaking loose all the clippings.

He looked at her face, smudged and with a few new lines around the eyes, and sighed. "I'm sorry. About everything, absolutely everything, it was all my fault -- "

"Don't do that. I've been thinking it through, and I can't see what we could have done different. Honestly. Worf wanted to do it, Geordi thought we could do it, and it didn't work. We're the only ones left and it makes no sense for us to sit around hating each other."

He looked down at where her hand lay upon his thigh, and sighed again. "The maneuver was executed on my say-so. That makes it my fault. We'd be on the ship. . . ."

"Instead of our replacements," she whispered, driving the last nail in the coffin, burying hope. "They aren't coming for us. We have to do with what we have. I'm tired of being alone. We're not officers here. Can we at least share a shelter?"

So they did.

~#~#~#~#~

The arrangements were simple. He fetched his gear in the waning light of dusk, recrossed the river, and dropped the duffel of survival gear in a corner of their shelter. Home sweet hull. Charming.

She finally showed the weariness, letting the facade of pleasant companionship fall away. The loneliness in her eyes hurt to look at -- the body under the uniform too thin, he realized. Her skin felt like sandpaper. He touched her hand, then her face, then backed away.

"Come on, let's take a walk."

She went along with it. What else was there?

They reached the river's edge and looked at the last rays of sunlight on the pool. Bits of flotsam drifting against the larger boulders at the nether end created a wall, a gentle falls at the upstream end provided the constant clean supply of water, and the greenish rocks lining the bottom looked smooth. Hardly thinking about it, he peeled off his shirt, then hesitated, looking at his companion. He wasn't used to having a companion any more.

She tugged her shirt off carefully. No tan lines. No bra. Her thinness more obvious, in the racks of ribs beneath breasts starting to sag. Even so, his body began to respond to her nakedness. Funny how that much could remain -- though the impulse ebbed just as spontaneously. He turned away and raised a foot to remove the boot.

She entered the water before he was done undressing, and he looked at her again, wading out with her arms spread to catch herself if she slipped. Dropping the filthy drawers took no effort. The waistband was shot. In the age of replicators, standard issue clothing wasn't made to last forever. He waded after her, not even bothering to glance down at the bones jutting. He knew from the way his skin pulled that his hips were beginning to stick out too much.

They sat together in the dusk with the water lapping around their necks. At length she retrieved something from beneath a rock at the shore. Soap. How long had she kept it there, and was it just for this occasion? She began with his hand, moving slowly, soaping him, and rather than let the suds get away he turned and reciprocated, re-using as much as he could.

They were thorough about it. The constant caressing and being caressed worked its magic; he started to feel the arousal again, slow and tentative. She worked her fingertips into his scalp, along his temples and down the bones of his skull. Her breath caught. They stood in the hip-deep gelid green water as the stars winked into being and the pale crescent of the moon rose, scrubbing with fingers and the heels of hands, letting the texture of skin do the work of lifting layers of dirt from pores.

He took a precious drop of soap from the bottle she'd propped nearby in a crack in a rock, devoting it to her hair, scooping water in his palm as if baptizing her. Closing her eyes, she let him tip her head back, supporting her shoulders as he rinsed the stringy hair clean. He let her float there on her back a moment, hair floating free around her head in the water, the pale length of her in the moonlight reminding him of mad Ophelia.

They rinsed as thoroughly as they had washed. Now she tended to him with a sure hand, guiding him to a rock on the bank and picking a branch from a nearby bush. Denuding it of extra tines and leaves, she fashioned a hairbrush and ran it through his hair. He took longer with hers, had to be gentler because of tangles, and cupped her cheek in his palm at times to turn her head. Their movements became gentler all the time.

"Be honest with me," he whispered. "If we were rescued tomorrow, would you regret?"

Her light kiss on his lips and her hand tugging his were the only answer she would give.

The path was smooth enough to walk barefoot. They left their clothes on the riverbank. She led the way into the shelter, obviously knowing her way around in the pitch dark, and maneuvered him into the bed she'd fashioned, probably out of seat cushions. It felt so good not to lie on the ground. No covers needed in the warmth of the night here on their private little world. She arranged herself next to him, took his hand, and sighed. Then her hand drifted down as she rolled on her side, and her lips brushed his shoulder.

"If it hurts. . . ."

"Don't worry about me," she whispered. "I've been thinking about it all day. Haven't you thought about it at all?"

For the first three months, it had been all he thought about. What else could he do? One man, one woman, stranded, quite remotely on a planet that the war would render unreachable. No resources to speak of, nothing above a rodent in the way of life. Or whatever those rat-sized things were.

"Yes. I've thought about it."

"If you don't want to. . . but I do. Why should we fight it? It would come to it -- "

"Am I arguing about this?"

"Sorry. I'm nervous. It probably won't be so fantastic, at first."

"Probably very brief," he said roughly. "Let's not kid ourselves."

She chuckled dryly. "I know. Touch me, please."

At first, it was a complete turnoff, feeling her bones beneath her skin. But he stroked gently down the length of her torso, her thighs, her arms, exploring where he hadn't been. The insides of joints and the contours of breasts. The body of a woman he'd known for years, slowly being torn down by rough living in the elements.

He should be attracted to her -- she was still beautiful, after all, her thinness notwithstanding. He was, but in a tired way. His body wasn't faring as well as hers, truth be told. He was older and had subjected himself to physical torments she hadn't endured. Her position aboard the ship hadn't necessitated rough and tumble nearly so often.

Thinking of the ship, of the receptions and the concerts and the other events held aboard their traveling city full of talented and fascinating people, seeing her there among them, laughing and smiling and charming them all -- what he wouldn't give to see that again. What he wouldn't give to have that life again. He wouldn't have this naked body next to him there, but sex wasn't everything. Even though at a certain point in his life he sometimes behaved as if it was.

This wasn't helping.

He focused on an image of her, in a formal gown with considerable cleavage bared, a slender leg flashing in the daringly-high slit of the skirt, the shift of muscle beneath the sheer fabric, the smile and the flash of humor -- then in workout clothes, sweating, whirling one of the weapons Worf was teaching her to use. The intense anger she occasionally held in, lighting embers in the backs of her eyes. The salacious smile he'd seen her with, just a scant few times, usually directed at someone she was with --

The leg. The smile. The cleavage. The skin, brushing his, her breath in his ear as she closed in to kiss his cheek, her hand coaxing his erection along toward hardness.

He rolled and found her mouth with his, glad he'd rinsed pretty thoroughly in the river. Tongues wrestled briefly. She made an urgent noise and gripped his arm tightly. A nipple brushed his chest. She wriggled against him, making it happen again, and his hand closed on that breast. He broke away, gasping raggedly until that hard little knob was in his teeth.

Her legs parted, sliding along his thighs, and she rocked him over on top of her, her fingers pressing his head down on her breast and her hips bouncing him into position. Nothing bashful about this woman. She knew exactly what she wanted. She probably knew he'd go off before she could have her fill of him, if she didn't get him in there and pumping.

Trying to be gentle didn't cut it. She made a frustrated noise as he moved slowly in -- what a tight spot she gave him, it felt so damned good, she wasn't very wet but she didn't seem to care -- she wiggled and arched up off the cushions, pressing herself against him, wailing his name.

That first thrust went deeper than he intended. She clenched herself on him, making keening noises, writhing, and he pulled out and rammed in again. A grunt burst from him, animalistic and accompanied by the slap of flesh. Her legs closed around his hips.

"Fuck me, damn you," she growled. "Fuck me like you should have done weeks ago."

Nothing could keep him from it now, anyway. Fuck gentleness, too. He thrust again, grunting and groaning, smashing her mouth under his at the beginnings of orgasm and jamming in deep as it poured out of him in a series of jerking spurts. They lay panting, arms around each other, and suddenly he hated himself with a clarity he'd denied all these weeks.

She stroked his head and held him close while he sobbed.

~#~#~#~#~

Days passed in silence. They didn't seem to need discussion. He went about modifying their living conditions automatically, as if the motivation he'd lacked all this time finally showed up. Sometimes he felt like laughing at the absurdity of it -- the turn of mood had come the day she'd demanded a good fucking -- but it hadn't been that. The real catalyst had been contact. Weeks spent hating each other from a distance, and then in an instant while placing flowers on a grave she'd turned it off, abruptly as turning off a viewscreen.

Cohabitation ensued. They shared the bed, comforted one another, touched in the way of an old married couple -- a hand on a shoulder, brush of the small of the back, caress of an arm or thigh. Openness where there had been hostility, affection where there had been none -- he found himself doing things to make her smile.

He made her a hammock, in between tending the garden and foraging. The rough fibers of one of the native vines braided well enough. It took him two weeks. When he took her down to the river and showed her where he'd hung it in the shade overlooking the pool, she pulled him into it with her and kissed him, and they made slow, sweet love in the swaying fiber net. Until it fell down thanks to a poorly-tied knot, and they rolled down the hill into the water, laughing. They didn't mind starting over later on, and the nights became more pleasant all the time.

He kept track as usual, with hash marks on a tree. The marks told him a year had passed finally; he switched trees. On the new tree, he put a big X on the day their son was born. When he reached a sixth tree, he put two X's when the twins were born.

And the day came. And they weren't expecting it. He was, in fact, a little disappointed to hear little William's shouts of frightened excitement as he raced up the path to the house. The old shuttle hull was now a gardening shed; the house had four rooms, luxurious as he could make it, for her. Sling chairs and a rough-hewn table, a stove made of parts of their old life, plates from the hull -- it was home. They'd been happy. And now it was over, with the sound of boots and voices coming up the path.

The twins, now four and precocious, climbed in his lap as he sat in the sling chair in the corner. Their eyes, wide and just like their mother's, fixed themselves on his face. He shushed their worries away and kissed each forehead, and waited.

The uniforms had changed, of course. The colors were the same he assumed -- red on the one in the lead, goldenrod on the two behind him, all three human and smiling. "I'm Captain Helmling," the young man said. "We detected your wreckage and life signs. How long have you been here?"

"Eight years," he replied. "Tell me, how's the war? Resolved?"

"Oh, a long time ago. It came to a close shortly after we lost Captain Picard in a. . . ." The man looked around slowly. "Are you. . . ."

"Yes. A survivor, as is my. . . wife." It was what he felt she was. "She and I were the only ones. We had hoped the Federation would eventually find us here, so we could take the children away. Home." He put William down. "Go get your mother and brother."

He nodded and edged past the newcomers, shouting as he raced off.

"Bet you'll be glad to get off this place," one of the security officers said.

The captain glanced at the house, then looked at him. "Sorry, but. . . I didn't catch your name."

He rose, holding little Beverly in his arms. "Captain Jean-Luc Picard."

~#~#~#~#~

The vineyard had been sold. The *Enterprise* had passed to a new captain and command crew.

After the hue and cry was over, they chose a house overlooking the bay in San Francisco and put the children through counseling as they continued the home-schooling they'd begun. Robert had the most serious adjustment to make. Eight years old and he could do things that other children his age couldn't. The son of Jean-Luc Picard excelled early. He was, however, quick enough to recover and was on demand to help build treehouses for his peers by the time he was ten.

Living on their joint accumulated backpay sustained them. They looked up old friends. For the first time since they'd come together, they felt genuinely lonely. They sought comfort in each other, as always. Their fourth child was born; she suggested naming him after Data, at least as a middle name. He smiled, unamused but tolerant, and suggested Jean-Pierre, no middle name. Data's demise had been the most difficult. The android had remained marginally functional, and in his care during their initial standoff; with no resources to fix him, Jean-Luc had had to watch his dear friend sputter to a halt, and finally had to disconnect him. She didn't know about that. He couldn't bring himself to tell her.

She went back to work, after two years of updating her degree. It took that long because of the baby. He didn't know what to do with himself, spent his days puttering with various hobbies, and with the children when they weren't in school. Made a few media appearances. Made a few speeches, but that only made him feel old, something he hated with a passion. All those fresh faces staring up at him, the famous Captain Picard, an icon, mentioned in countless Academy textbooks now for all kinds of reasons. He refused teaching positions and ambassadorships. Refused any visits at home from Starfleet officers across the board. Refused, even when old acquaintances came up with archeological expeditions, to go into space.

He looked up one afternoon when his wife came home to find that she'd aged, too. She smiled and it went away, however. She would always be that woman on their deserted planet in the middle of nowhere -- Picard's planet, it was called now. The place they had laid old friends to rest and made a new start. He took her out on the back porch and sat with her, and discussed things she didn't want to think about with her, but she went along with him anyway. She was ever and always his listening ear. She agreed with him in the end. Accused him of being manipulative and always getting his way, Captain Picard to the very last, but she did it with a fond smile.

Robert brought over his wife and the kids. The twins took leave and came home. Jean-Pierre ditched a final at the Academy. They held the family meeting over dinner, discussing it, and Robert finally swayed the others -- their parents deserved to make their own choice about this, and they wouldn't have forever to do it. Papa was one hundred and twenty-five, he needed rest, and he'd never felt at home completely -- San Francisco had always been for the kids.

So William appealed to his commanding officer, who admired Captain Jean-Luc Picard greatly, and the whole family made the trip, the grandchildren too, little Jean-Luc and Yvette, big-eyed at their first ride through space. They traveled to the remote planet where it had all ended and began, luckily now within Federation space. A colony had begun, but on a different continent; the old home place was undisturbed. It mollified the kids to know there would be a hospital and spaceport nearby. What was left of the house was cleared away, and William's crewmates set up the modular they'd brought along, complete with all the conveniences the couple hadn't had the first time around.

The kids beamed up last, looking at their parents standing together on the porch as they dematerialized. They'd promised to call often, but there was a grimness there that said they knew often wouldn't be enough.

She took care of him. He woke sometimes with tears in his eyes, grieving the things he asked of her. She didn't complain. Her own joints ached; he caught her more than once using the medications and regenerators she claimed were for him. They took slow walks by the river, remembering, and once in a while made the longer journey to the graves. Permanent markers had been set over them. Worf. Geordi. Data. Will Riker.

He missed them now more than ever. He missed the laughter and the smiles. The comradery. He dreamed sometimes he was still on the bridge, but then he dreamed of his children, running through the days with smiles and laughing eyes, her eyes, and he couldn't regret.

Then he found her there, lying on the grave. Riker's grave. A handful of flowers in her hand, and a peaceful smile on her face.

He had always known that there was some part of her she'd never been able to give him, and he'd never begrudged her that. There was a part of him that had belonged to another, after all. But he cried, for the woman he'd loved so long, who had sworn to be with him until the end, and for the irony of it all, that it had been her end first -- she was so much younger than he that it never occurred to him she'd go first.

He knew he should go back to the house and make the call. He knew she should be buried properly. He would put her there next to Will, where she belonged, and he would have them put him next to her because it was where he wanted to be, always.

But she was gone.

Her smile lingered in his memory, her eyes dark and glimmering with tears of joy at the births of their children, her laughter at his long sessions teaching Robert about math when it'd been his own worst subject -- her body, soft against his.

The old crew were all gone now. Beverly had passed on quietly while they were stranded, and Wesley had told him it was due to illness, but he'd seen a hint of troubled pain in the back of the young man's eyes. And reproach. Why hadn't he made Beverly happy, while he could?

Perhaps the reproach wasn't Wesley's, but his own reflecting back at him.

He'd never seen Wesley again, after that. Perhaps it had been Wesley's reproach after all. But it was also his.

He looked at his wife curled up as if asleep and dreaming on the grave of his first officer, and sighed a long, heavy, deep sigh. He realized he'd been standing there for hours, and the hot sun was beating down on his bare head, burning the skin.

As the dusk fell, he lowered himself to lay beside her, just one last time. Just one more time, to touch her face, to love her. The beginning hadn't been pleasant but she'd made the rest as perfect as she could -- ever the counselor, she'd known exactly what he needed to stay sane, and she'd given it to him. He could even believe that most of it hadn't been given in the line of duty. She seemed happy enough, through the years.

"Deanna," he whispered. "I still need you. Don't go."

His breath caught. She opened her eyes slowly -- she wasn't gone. She'd only been still. . . sleeping. Even as he touched her face with his gnarled fingers, she'd lain there.

Slowly, she sat up and looked at the sky, then at him. "What are you doing out here?"

"The stars," he said, pointing. "I saw you were laying here looking at them. I thought it looked like a nice night for it."

Her grey hair fell forward as she shook her head. "Come on, Jean-Luc. We're going home."

She helped him up with great care. "I'm not feeble, dammit!" he snapped, out of habit.

"I know, dear."

He leaned on her a moment, hating that he had to, and stared at the flowers she'd dropped, still on the grassy grave. She followed his gaze, patted his arm, and kissed his leathery cheek.

They walked the old path, slower than all previous trips they'd made, savoring the evening and pointing at the constellations they'd made up for the children. The Riker. The Enterprise. The Stargazer. The Five Rings, and the Chalice of Rixx. Even one named after Data's cat, Spot.

There were messages waiting from the kids. They listened together, drinking tea, smiling at the pictures of the grandchildren. She left him alone then, at his request, as he recorded some final messages. He did it every so often, replacing the previous final messages -- he would not depart without leaving them, and they would be as current as he could make them. Every contingency covered.

She returned to find him sagging in his chair. "Dee. . . ."

"I'll get the medkit."

He caught her sleeve. "No. Look at me."

She looked, tears spilling, and kissed his face. "Don't go, please, don't leave me."

"Everyone leaves, eventually, Deanna. I want you to know that I love you. I know that I could never replace him in your heart, but I hope that you were happy -- "

"How can you say that?" she cried. "You can't say that to me! Hope? Weren't you paying any attention? I loved you, had your children, I would do anything for you -- I love you, Jean-Luc!"

"I know. Thank you."

"Thank you?" She was almost livid, and paced a few steps, waving her arms. "Just that? Just a simple -- no! Stop! Don't leave -- "

His body felt lighter, suddenly. "It's all I have left to give you, Dee," he whispered. "You've had everything I could give. I can only hope that it was enough. . . ."

Enough to make up for giving the order that killed Will.

But he could never say that to her. Motivations changed over time.

"I love you, Deanna," he sighed, closing his eyes, feeling her hands catching his head. "I love you. I love. . . ."

~#~#~#~#~

Robert Picard came swiftly to his mother's side, taking time off from work, insisting that the rest of the family wait until he called them.

She wouldn't leave the grave, the nurse said. When he came up the hill that spring day, like many he remembered from his childhood riding along on his father's shoulders, reaching for the sky, he found her there stroking the dirt mound. Breaking clods of dirt with her fingers as if to do away with the burden to him. She wouldn't look at him.

"Mother, come on. You know he wouldn't want this. You can't stay out here -- three days? The nurse said you haven't come in that long -- what are you doing?"

She'd had him buried apart from the others, at the crown of the hill. Facing the sunrise. As she sat there crying, raking the dirt with her fingers, Robert saw that her fingertips were bleeding. She looked too thin. Hadn't been eating. Tears streaked the careworn face -- shocking how old she looked, just since a few months ago, since the funeral. Her eyes pleaded for release.

"Mother -- "

"I loved him," she exclaimed bitterly, as if defending herself. "You knew that -- didn't you? I loved him! I never would have left his side, never! It wasn't his fault! It was *my* fault! If I could've had the presence of mind to do it -- I could have ejected the warp core sooner! I saw what was going to happen and I thought I knew what he was going to say but I waited -- I trusted his judgement more than mine! If I'd done it sooner we wouldn't have -- I loved him! I did!"

Robert took her arms and held her as gently as he could, hoping she wouldn't hurt herself in the struggling. "Mother, please, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm an empath too, you know. We all are. You think I wouldn't know if you didn't love him? You loved each other more than any other couple I've ever met."

Actually, that hadn't always been true. In those early years, when it was just him and the twins on this planet, he'd seen the two of them behave less like the couple everyone knew and more like brother and sister. In his teen years, he'd found his empathy blossoming and discovered love between his parents, but as he grew older he'd looked back further and wondered, from his more mature point of view, what he would have sensed back then.

She stopped fighting him and wept in his arms, such heartbreaking sobs that he cried a little with her -- the grief spilled out of her in torrents. "Beverly -- I'm so sorry -- Beverly -- if only I'd stopped minding my own business long enough to slap some sense into you -- "

"Mother, stop this. What are you talking about?"

She wrestled free of his arms and fell across the grave headlong. She seemed different now, more at ease, and reached for a bouquet of flowers that lay in the grass, bringing it to her nose. Her eyes closed.

"Robert," she whispered. "My son. I love you."

"I love you, too, Maman," he said, lapsing to his childhood term. His French was rusty.

"I want you to bury me here with him. Where I belong. I want to be with him -- he needs me. If I hadn't stranded us here -- oh, Beverly, I'm so sorry. . . ." Her fingers raked the dirt slowly. "Jean-Luc, I love you. I love you. I love. . . ."

Robert sat on his knees and cried silently, watching the wind gently blow her hair across her pale, wrinkled cheek. He remembered this place, the graves his parents had visited off and on with solemn expression, and Mother's soothing of Father's grief, time and time again. He remembered the laughter, racing through the fields and leaping into the river, or sitting near the loom his father had made while his mother hummed and wove fibers for cloth. Remembered her laughing as she danced with Papa around the front room, flowers in her hair.

No, he had been wrong about the love. It had always been there. Just different, slow-growing, changing like the seasons. Sometimes a storm, sometimes sunshine. But always there.

He stood slowly, looked at her serene face, the tears now dried, and turned to head for the house. He would get a shovel and do it himself. Just like Papa would have done, just like Papa always did in those days of living in the house he built with the family he raised on the hill he called Labarre.


End file.
